Indonesia: US Underwriting Terrorism?by Conn Hallinanwww.dissidentvoice.org
October 20, 2004First Published in
Foreign
Policy in Focus

[Editor's Note: This article first appeared on
September 15. On September 23, the US Senate voted voted to renew bans on
International Military Education and Training (IMET) and foreign military
financing (FMF) for Indonesia. The State Department is planning to
provide FMF for Indonesia in 2006 as part of the Bush Administration's
Fiscal Year 2006 budget request. Please visit the
East Timor Action Network
to find out what you can do to stop US assistance to the Indonesian
military.]

Behind
a recent, highly controversial indictment by the U.S. Department of Justice,
the Bush administration is maneuvering to revive military ties with the
Indonesian Army (TNI), one of the world's most oppressive institutions.

In late June, U.S. Attorney
General John Ashcroft convinced a federal grand jury to indict Anthonuis
Wamang for a 2002 ambush in West Papua that killed two Americans, an
Indonesian, and wounded 12 others. The indictment identifies Wamang as a
commander in the Free Papua Movement (OPM) and, despite strong evidence to
the contrary, clears the Indonesian military of charges that it engineered
the incident.

Human rights groups,
long-time observers of Indonesia, and even the Indonesian police say the
indictment ignores evidence tying the ambush to the most notorious unit of
the TNI, Kopassus. Indeed, rights groups charge that Wamang works for
Kopassus, not the OPM.

The OPM has been fighting a
low-key rebellion since Indonesia--with U.S. support--short-circuited a UN
election and engineered the seizure of West Papua in 1969. West Papua is the
western half of New Guinea and Indonesia's eastern-most province.

The U.S. has a long
relationship with the TNI, dating back to the 1965 coup that overthrew
President Sukarno and led to the murder of over 500,000 Communists and
leftists. According to declassified U.S. documents, American intelligence
helped finger some of the coup's victims. The U.S. also supported
Indonesia's violent takeover of East Timor in 1975.

The Bush administration is
currently pushing Congress to fund an International Military Education and
Training (IMET) program for Indonesia, but Congress is holding up the monies
because of Indonesia's resistance to seriously investigate the 2002 ambush.

The U.S. first restricted
Indonesia's IMET funds following the 1991 massacre of 270 civilians in Santa
Cruz , East Timor. All military ties were suspended in 1999 when TNI-organized
civilian death squads ravaged East Timor following that country's
independence vote. IMET funds were suspended after the 2002 West Papua
ambush.

While the TNI blamed the
OPM for the attack, not even the local police agree. Two months after the
Aug. 31 ambush, a police report found that the OPM was an unlikely suspect
because the group "never attacks white people." It concluded that TNI
involvement "was a strong possibility."

At the time, U.S. officials
concurred with the charge of TNI involvement. A "senior (Bush)
administration official" told Raymond Bonner of the New York Times, that
"there is no question there was military involvement. There is no question
it was premeditated."

According to the Australian
newspaper, The Age, "The initial police report on the attack concluded:
'There is a strong possibility' that the attack was 'perpetrated by members
of the Indonesian National Force Army, however, it still needs to be
investigated further'." But further investigation may be problematical.
According to The Age, "Indonesian police investigators were threatened,
evidence appeared to be planted, and the crime scene appeared to be
interfered with.”

Two vans were ambushed
leaving Freeport McMoRan's Grasberg mine, the largest gold and copper mine
in the world. The attacker, or attackers, used M-16s, a weapon that has
never been associated with the OPM, many of whose members use bows and
arrows. OPM spokesperson John Ondowame denied any involvement in the attack.
"I can say with assurance that the incident did not involve the Free Papua
Movement," he told the press in Melbourne, Australia.

It would hardly be
surprising that the TNI, in particular Kopassus, would engineer such an
incident. In 2001 seven low-level members of the unit were jailed for
murdering Papuan independence leader, Theys Eluay.

The seven are appealing
their two to three year sentences which, given the track record of such
appeals for war crimes committed in East Timor, are likely to be overturned.
Out of 18 Indonesians charged with war crimes for their behavior in East
Timor, Indonesian courts acquitted 12, and convicted six. Of the six, four
had their sentences overturned, and one had his sentence halved. The one
civilian charged, the former governor of East Timor, was sentenced to three
and a half years. The minimum for such crimes is 10 years.

In the meantime, Indonesia
has ignored the UN-sponsored court in East Timor, which has charged almost
400 people with war crimes, including former presidential candidate, General
Wiranto. Indonesia has refused to hand over any of the defendants.

Besides discrediting the
OMP, the military had a financial stake in the ambush. Freeport McMoRan paid
the TNI $10.7 million in protection money from 2000 to 2002, and provided
military officers with free airline tickets. The company stopped the
payments shortly before the ambush because a new American corporate
responsibility law required disclosure of such payments. One intelligence
analyst told Bonner it was "extortion, pure and simple."

But the stakes are much
bigger than bribes and free airline tickets.

Re-starting the lucrative
Indonesia-U.S. arms pipeline and roping in a potential ally against what
some in the Bush administration see as their future
competitor--China--overshadows greasing the palms of local Indonesian
military commanders. Indonesia could be an important link in the chain of
bases and allies the U.S. is forging in Asia. Australia, the Philippines,
Japan, and India have already signed up for the U.S. anti-missile system.
The Bush administration says it is directed at North Korea, but the Chinese
are convinced it targets their small missile fleet.

The U.S. Defense Department
(DOD) has lobbied to end the ban on arms sales and cooperation with the
Indonesian military, in spite of the latter's horrendous human rights record
in the rebellious provinces of Aceh, the Malukus, East Timor, and Papua. "I
think it is unfortunate that the U.S. today does not have
military-to-military relationships with Indonesia," says Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld.

Rumsfeld's right-hand man,
DOD Assistant Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, argues, "More contact with the West
and the United States and moving them in a positive direction is important
both to support democracy and support the fight against terrorism."
Wolfowitz was Ambassador to Indonesia during the Reagan administration.

But others argue the
opposite.

According to Karen
Orenstein, Washington coordinator for the East Timor Action Network (ETAN),
"History demonstrates that providing training and other assistance only
emboldens the Indonesian military to violate human rights and block
accountability for past injustices."

The Indonesian military's
"worst abuses," says Ed McWilliams, former State Department political
counselor in the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta from 1996-99, "took place when we
(the U.S.) were most engaged."

"Abuses" is a mild term for
what the TNI has inflicted on places like East Timor and Aceh.

According to the UN,
Indonesia's 24-year occupation of East Timor resulted in 200,000 deaths, a
higher kill ratio than Pol Pot managed in Cambodia. Following the vote for
independence, TNI-sponsored militias went on a rampage, killing up to 1,500
people, forcing another 250,000 into concentration camps in West Timor, and
destroying 70% of East Timor 's infrastructure.

In May, 2003, Indonesia
broke a cease-fire with the Free Aceh Movement (GAM), sent in 40,000 troops
and 10,000 police, and sealed off the oil-rich province of Sumatra from
journalists, human rights groups, and even international aid organizations
like UNICEF, the Red Cross, and the World Health Organization. Much of
Aceh's civilian population has been moved into strategic hamlets and,
according to Amnesty International, there is "widespread … torture of
detainees in both military and police custody."

As in East Timor, the
military, with the blessing of Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri,
has organized "civilian defense groups that are little more than death
squads.” According to the government-run National Commission on Human
Rights, the military has been recruiting, training, and arming such groups,
which are then unleashed on the population.

The TNI has also been
accused of aiding the right-wing Muslim organization, Laskar Jihad, which is
associated with widespread violence in Maluku and is increasingly active in
West Papua.

Ashcroft's indictment has
stirred outrage among human rights groups, both in West Papua and the U.S.

An Aug. 4 joint press
statement from three Papuan rights groups, ELSHAM, LEMASA and YAHAMAK,
expressed "grave concern over the actions of U.S. Attorney General John
Ashcroft" and accused Ashcroft of "suppressing evidence" that the groups had
supplied FBI agents investigating the ambush.

The groups say that Wamang,
the target of the indictment, was "a business partner of Kopassus." The
groups also charge that the Indonesian military "routinely uses civilians to
stage attacks," and that the former Police Chief of West Papua , General
Made Pastika, concluded the TNI was behind the attack. According to the
three groups, none of this evidence was presented to the grand jury.

In his statement announcing
the indictment, Ashcroft said, "The U.S. government is committed to tracking
down and prosecuting terrorists who prey on innocent Americans in Indonesia
and around the world. Terrorists will find they cannot hide from U.S.
justice."

But according to a 2002
study by the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, the TNI's links to groups like
Laskar Jihad has made it "a major facilitator of terrorism."

As John Miller of ETAN
points out, the Indonesian military carries out and sponsors terrorism
throughout the huge archipelago. "Who," he asks, "are the terrorists here?"

Conn Hallinan is a foreign policy analyst for
Foreign Policy in Focus,
where this article first appeared, and a Lecturer in Journalism at the
University of California, Santa Cruz.